motivatherToday, Tennessee—and the world—lost an icon. Dolly Parton has passed away at 80, leaving behind a legacy almost too expansive to capture in one tribute. She was an extraordinary songwriter and entertainer, but to me, she was also something else: a business idol. Her family announced her passing on August 25, 2026.
Dolly understood what it meant to make your mark.
She was extravagant and gorgeous. She wore the hair, the rhinestones, the heels and the colors without apology. She never made herself smaller to be taken seriously. But behind every sparkling outfit was a sharp, strategic and deeply disciplined businesswoman.
Dolly did not simply build a career. She built an ecosystem.
She turned songs into intellectual property, her image into an unmistakable brand and her success into businesses that created jobs, attracted visitors and strengthened the economy of her home state. Dollywood became more than a theme park. It became a Tennessee institution and one of the clearest examples of what can happen when someone builds from her roots instead of running from them.
Even near the end of her life, Dolly was still creating.
She had recently opened Dolly’s Tennessean Travel Stop in Cornersville—a gas station transformed into a destination with Southern food, Tennessee-made products, snacks, coffee and, of course, a little sparkle. Her SongTeller Hotel and Life of Many Colors Museum were also being prepared for downtown Nashville, extending her story into another experience that would bring people, business and opportunity to Tennessee.
That was Dolly. She could see more in an ordinary place. A theme park could become an economic engine. A hotel could become a living museum. A travel stop could become a destination. A childhood surrounded by poverty could become the foundation for an international literacy movement.
Last year, I drove past Dolly Parton’s home in Brentwood, Tennessee, and I was so excited. I had not met her, but simply being that close to a place connected to her life felt special. On another Tennessee visit, I learned that she had stayed in the property’s largest room. These were small moments, but they made her feel tangible—not just like a celebrity on a screen, but like a woman who had moved through the same state, traveled the same roads and kept choosing to invest in the place that raised her.
Her influence entered my own home through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
My children have benefited from the books delivered through that program, and some still do. Those books were not an abstract charitable gesture. They arrived at our door. We held them, read them and added them to our family’s story.
The Imagination Library began in 1995 for children in Dolly’s home county in East Tennessee. It grew into an international book-gifting program that now sends more than three million books each month to children from birth to age five.
As a mother, educator, former reading interventionist and woman committed to the development of girls, I understand the magnitude of that decision. Dolly did not merely say that children deserved opportunities. She put books into their hands. She built a system that could continue reaching families at a scale few individuals ever achieve.
That is what making your mark truly looks like.
It is not only becoming known. It is using what you build to make life better for someone else.
Dolly showed us that femininity and business intelligence were never opposites. She could be softhearted and strategic. Glamorous and generous. Rooted in faith and bold in her ambition. She could laugh at herself while taking her work very seriously.
She understood that owning your story is powerful—and owning the business built around that story is even more powerful.
Dolly Parton made her mark in music, film, hospitality, tourism, literacy and philanthropy. But perhaps her greatest achievement was the way she remained unmistakably herself through all of it. She never abandoned Tennessee in order to become global. She brought the world back home with her.
She made her home state better because she had lived.
That is the kind of legacy I admire. It is the kind that challenges all of us to ask:
What are we building that will continue serving people when we are no longer here?
Dolly’s music will continue playing. Families will continue visiting Dollywood. Travelers will continue stopping for coffee and a little sparkle. Children—including children like mine—will continue opening books with her name inside them.
That is a mark no passing can erase.
Rest in peace, Dolly Parton.
Thank you for showing women that we can be brilliant businesspeople without surrendering our beauty, our generosity, our faith, our roots or the fullness of who we are.
Thank you for making Tennessee better.
And thank you for making your mark.
motivather
Writer
